The German could only manage 16th on the grid for Sunday’s Abu Dhabi GP, but has suggested that his placing was down to human error rather than a lack of consistency. The Q1 elimination was allowing him to save some life in his super-soft tires.

“A huge mistake on our side made it impossible for Seb [Vettel] to progress beyond Q1,” admitted Arrivabene following qualifying.

The victim Sebastian Vettel told reporters: “Nothing wrong with the car, we thought that the lap I had on the Soft (harder) tyres was quick enough, but in the end it was not.

“There was also a car in front which shouldn’t have been there. So we misjudged the situation, a small mistake with big consequence, but the race is tomorrow and lots can happen.

“It is good that Kimi [Raikkonen] is in the front, we have a quick car and it is possible to overtake here, even if only tomorrow we’ll be able to tell how much it is. The German added

“You can spend a lot of time speaking about what we did wrong, but in the end we know, so now we need to move forward.”